CIVILISATION'S INSECURITY.

Ellesmere Guardian, Volume XLV, Issue 3190, 3 February 1928, Page 4

CIVILISATION'S INSECURITY.

"The vast complications of the modern world depend on very slender threads,'' says the London Evening Standard, discussing the failure of the electrie lighting in the Houses of Parliament. Electric light is a very convenient thing, much more convenient than candles or oil lamps. But it has

its own peculiar drawbacks. No one can imagine a puff of wind which, would blow out simultaneously all the \ candles in the Houses of Parliament,! but a very small fire can easily extin- i guish all the electric lights at once. Wo have gained a good deal, but we have put. ourselves into a position of depeni dence which is not without its dangers, j There is, of course, reason for congratulating ourselves that sueh breakdowns are so rare as to astonish us when they occur. But—and we arc not without examples in recent times— there are also what might be called moral breakdowns. The older world, the world before electricity and steam, was, when all is said and done, a much less comfortable place to live in than our own. But no upheaval possible in it could have turned it into such a chaos as we are threatened with by a war or a general strike. Caligula is said to have wished that the Roman people had only one neck, so that he could strike off its head with one blow. We to-day have in very deed given ourselves only one neck. It is a power cable, and the blow required to sever it does not call for the strength of a giant. Now more than ever before in the history of the world is it true that it is easier to destroy than to build. .It. is as much easier to wreck civilisation to-day than a hundred years ago as it is easier to disable a motor car than to kill a horse. But this very fact may teach us caution and preserve us from ruin."